Stephen Kovacevich Plays Beethoven CD

 The best concertos and diabellis
The concerto cycle with Colin Davies is the finest out there. Beethoven concertos requires great musicality and excellent techniqe. A lot of great musicians like Kempff, Arrau and Brendel lacked too much virtuouso techniqe to do them full justice. Others like Pollini with the techniqe lacked the deep musical understandanding to do them justice. A third group with the represented by the likes of Solomon did not have ample backing. My absolute favourite is 4th, which I recently compared to the hyped miss Grimaud. However beutiful she is her shortcommings in all other departments were obvious. Kovacevich made a second concertcycle for EMI with the Australian Chamberorchestra which is not this good except for a very interesting Emperor in fastest tempi I've ever heard. Kovacevichs' sonata cycle on EMI is one of the best around, but it still disappointed me a little. The variations of tempi and espescially the dynamic range is not enough. There was a little too much heavy hammering and some of the phrasing isn't melodic enough. Some of these older versions of the sonatas are better. He sounds more fresh in the fast movements like 8-1,18-4,30-2,31-2. The new version of no 5 and no 32 though is better. The Diabellis is a masterpiece and many consider this the no 1 version. His main rivals in this area seem to be Brendel and nowadays Anderszewsi. Both Kovacevich and Anderszewski made their international debuts with the diabellis. I feel though that Kovacevichs tempi are better judged. The main rival of the bagatelles are his bagatelles for EMI (op 119 and 126). I prefer this set though as it is more fluent and relaxed. The EMI recording is more sharply accenter and filled wirh thrills which gives us a clear view of the difference between the Kovavevich of Phillipsera (60s and 70s)and of the EMIera (80s and forward). I generally prefer the Phillipsman even though the EMI-man is still very interesting.
Submitted by Johan (Stockholm, Sweden)
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